Senator Mark Udall of Colorado has been an absolute bulldog on the issue of whether or not "Trust Us, We're The Good Guys" is a sufficient defense of the National Security Agency's construction of an American surveillance state. Now, he's pretty much accused General Keith Alexander, who heads the NSA and who was very cutesy-poo on the Sunday showz last weekend, of peddling arrant bullshit.

Sen. Mark Udall on Monday accused the National Security Agency of providing false information in a fact sheet about its spying programs, and in a letter to NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander, Udall said the agency is portraying stronger privacy protections for Americans than actually exist. Udall and Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden contend the NSA's fact sheet on the so-called 702 program, which gives the government authority to collect foreigners' phone and Internet communications, has "significant" inaccuracies, according to the letter obtained by The Denver Post.

However, alas, even Mark Udall gets tangled up in the mad logic of the surveillance state.

The NSA's publication maintains the government may not target any Americans anywhere in the world under this law, that there must be a "valid, documented" foreign intelligence purpose for the government to use this authority and that the government must minimize the acquisition of information that isn't relevant to intelligence investigations. Udall said he could not elaborate on what part of the two-page fact sheet is inaccurate because it would divulge classified information.

Although Congress has exclusive constitutional authority to set the terms of trade, so far the executive branch has managed to resist repeated requests by members of Congress to see the text of the draft agreement and has denied requests from members to attend negotiations as observers - reversing past practice. While the agreement could rewrite broad sections of nontrade policies affecting Americans' daily lives, the administration also has rejected demands by outside groups that the nearly complete text be publicly released. Even the George W. Bush administration, hardly a paragon of transparency, published online the draft text of the last similarly sweeping agreement, called the Free Trade Area of the Americas, in 2001. There is one exception to this wall of secrecy: a group of some 600 trade "advisers," dominated by representatives of big businesses, who enjoy privileged access to draft texts and negotiators.

Please, someone, explain the "national security" implications of keeping the terms of a massive international trade deal secret, not merely from the American people, but from their representatives in Congress. Please explain how something must be kept secret from the American people and their representatives in Congress, but not from 600 "trade advisers."

I like to believe that the larger question raised by the whole Snowden episode is to allow the American people to decide precisely how secret their government should be. That's why I bristled when the Dancin' Master implied that Glenn Greenwald might not be a "journalist." I think he is, but opinions can vary and he might not be. But what he is practicing certainly is journalism. I've always believed that, in this free society, one of the primary jobs of the craft is to deny a self-governing people the alibi of "We didn't know." The job is not to leave them that excuse, anyway. You could have known. You should have known. If we do our jobs correctly, it's your fault if you didn't know, not the government's. I believe that is what is happening in this case. The American people have to decide precisely how secret their government should be. Edward Snowden -- and Glenn Greenwald -- are doing nothing if they are not providing a self-governing people with the information needed to make that determination. They are eliminating "We didn't know" as an alibi, and that's what journalism is supposed to do.

But, by all means, let's argue about where he is, and about whether or not Snowden is playing out the worst Stephen Spielberg movie ever. That's more fun.